


House of Cards

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aged-Up Character, Dave Strider where are your boundaries?, Dirty Talk, M/M, Solicitation, Texting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-12
Updated: 2012-06-12
Packaged: 2017-11-07 15:03:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave drives Karkat up the metaphorical wall by finding out that he is easily flustered by dirty talk. That's pretty much it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a kinkmeme prompt:  
>   
> "I want to see Dave drive Karkat up the metaphorical wall by talking dirty every moment he possibly can - whispering things when they're in public, texting Karkat messages, that works. Karkat doesn't want to give in, but Dave just keeps pushing his luck until he snaps."

This precariously balanced house of cards situation only managed to prove entertaining for a couple weeks at best. Then Dave got bored.

The Veil. It sucked harder than an industrial strength vacuum in the hands of an obsessive, determined-ass housewife (or house husband, we aren’t being stereotypical here) who knew what they fuck they were doing with cleaning supplies. The kids had finagled their way there through one of Feferi and Jade’s convoluted plans involving dream bubbles and weird Harley science shit and everyone else had kind of gone along for the very bumpy ride. Honestly, Dave hadn’t been paying too much attention to the plan itself and was instead brushing up on his investment pyramid schemes. Whatever. 

The introductions couldn’t have been more cliche. The two derps flung themselves at just about everyone for a series of not-so-bone-crushing or even ironic hugs while Dave and Rose had hung back in their characteristic cavalier and aloof fashion. One could only expect so much. Eventually, everyone had been forced (read: “Daveee. Come on, say hi!”) to take part in the meet and greet. Rose had been elegantly escorted by the only troll who really seemed to have any sort of fashion sense besides the idea that black always matched with black, forgetting the guy in the corner who was either a hipster douchebag or had the best grasp on irony in the history of the universe. As Dave watched his sister follow Maryam with an air of composed superiority, he let his shoulders fall into the best slouch and allowed himself to be subjected (finally) to Pyrope’s relentless tongue-bath greetings and Tavros’s excited (and obviously well-practiced) rap introductions. 

The trolls were largely what Dave had been expecting. He didn’t have too endure much contact with most of them, as it turned out. Terezi was almost constantly by his side, though that was as easily expected as it was easily tolerated, especially after a few ground rules about how uncool the violation of personal space with bodily secretions like spit was. Eridan, the hipster had proven disappointing with his low level grasp on irony (despite what he might have believed) and luckily he spent most of his time sulking around by himself so Dave didn’t have to even touch that one with a hundred foot pole. Gamzee and Tavros were decently chill, but also spent most of their time together. Sollux was decent when Dave found him in an agreeable mood, but that was only ever so often. The rest he only had passing contact with, as they kept to themselves and/or were busy doing “more important” things, which suited Dave just perfectly.

Everyone had kind of set up daily routines faster than you could accuse Eridan of over-accessorizing. There was no real sense of night and day in the Veil, but before they had arrived, Vantas (in his typical control freak fashion) had set up some sort of schedule that dictated when to wake up, eat, do unimportant shit, pass out, and start all over again the next day. At least it avoided any sort of mind-numbing monotony, right? Egbert and Vantas settled in as co-palhoncos, one more comfortable with the arrangement than the other, and more monotony was to be found. To try to combat the monotony of the veil, the terrible scheduling and the brain eating boredom, Egbert introduced game time, which was both uncool and excruciatingly boring. However, through some twist of ironic fate, Dave found himself attending all of the sessions.  
  
The “please stop gauging your eyes out with a rusty spoon, now there’s super fun games to play!” game sessions started out rather terribly. The concepts of all of the troll games were pretty much lost on the humans, probably having to do with the fact that the names were only a few words short of the rules and no one really felt like explaining them in any great (or necessary) detail. The more intricate human games like “Monopoly” (WHY ON ALTERNAIA DOES THIS GAME TAKE SO FUCKING LONG TO PLAY. OH, WAIT, IT’S NOT LIKE I WAS DOING ANYTHING WITH MY LIFE ANYWAY. AND EGBERT, DON’T THINK I CAN’T SEE YOU POCKETING THOSE FIFTIES, YOU CHEATING NOOKSUCKER. THAT DOES NOT RAISE YOUR PRANKSTER'S GAMBIT.) or “Life” (:33 there aren't any spots in the cars fur meowrails or the rest of the quadrants, but there are spots fur grubs? this pawl s33ms so silly) were more or less lost on the trolls. Any suggestions of LARPing were pushed aside due to the potential dangerous consequences of the activity (uH, gUYS, i’M NOT TOTALLY SURE THAT I WOULD REALLY ENJOY THAT, iF THAT IS A THING THAT WE WOULD MAYBE BE CONSIDERING DOING) as well taking into consideration how horrendously uncool it was (no). Eventually they settled on simple card games. At least the clean up from Karkat’s rage-fits wasn’t too bad and the worst damage Equius could do was crumple the cards. They even managed to keep Gamzee’s attention for long enough to get through a few rounds. A couple weeks into the routine of settling down for cards after dinner (or what never should have counted for food, ever), Dave glanced over at everyone who seemed to be pondering their cards with way too much brain-power necessary for Go Fish. His eyes narrowed behind his shades and he pulled out his phone, scrolling to a random contact before messaging them, determined to cure his boredom. With one veiled look to his apparent intended victim, he began,  
  
you know what would be more fun than this  
sitting at the top of a rusty ass ferris wheel with a six inch spike inches from my nads  
waiting for a sexy but also partially decaying zombie nurse to scale the sides and sink her teeth into my delicious human meat popsicle  
because dang bro that dental youre flashing is some seriously fucked up shit  
got me all daydreaming in its glory

Dave hadn’t spent too much time bothering with Karkat in the slightestbefore. He only harassed the guy when it seemed apparent that the ball of rage was trying to do a frighteningly terrible job of hitting on Egbert and Harley, fulfilling his role as a good bro. Luckily, the troll had given up on both accounts, for now at least. Other than that, Dave hadn’t given him too much thought, other than the revelation that being anywhere within ten feet of the machine of leaking vitriol and spite was the fastest way to get a headache in the Veil. Despite low expectations, in all honesty, Dave had been expecting a bit more of a violent, entertaining reaction.

WHAT  
WHAT THE HELL?  
FUCK OFF.

The response would have been blueball inducing in it’s simplicity if it hadn’t been for the not-so-sutble way that Vantas’s cheeks turned the slightest hint of pink in rage and the way his knuckles turned white as he gripped his own portable mobile device in anger before he shoved it mercilessly into his pocket, not to pull it out again that night. It was also intriguing that he refused to make eye contact with Dave for the rest of the game, though honestly, Dave wasn’t sure if that was new or not, as he hadn’t been paying attention to the irate troll before.


	2. Chapter 2

Dave laid in his (poorly alchemized version of a) bed, arms behind his head, nonchalant and cool, even behind closed doors -- that’s how Striders roll, man. This place was boring the shit out of him, even with the added mass chaos that the game sessions promised. However, they did seem to have a sliver of hope. Dave mused back on the previous game, mulling over a certain interaction in his head: it was the only thing that had proven to be even moderately entertaining during the few hours they managed to keep a coherent game going. Vantas, the ever-hating rage machine, the motor-box of constant yelling, had been silenced by a simple text message. 

The image of Karkat sitting there, his face tinted almost un-noticeably red, mouth slightly agape from what Dave could only imagine was disgust or some sort of offence at Dave’s deplorable choice of words, was what gave the blonde hope. He had been explicitly told by many a troll that he was not to fuck with Gamzee no matter how easy it was to feed the clown ICP videos and, begrudgingly, Strider had listened. However, this left very few of the grey, candy-corn horn toting assholes to fuck with. Tavros had, inexplicably gained some cajones overnight and got as good as Dave gave, rhyme wise, which was nice and all, but less relaxing and necessitated more effort than what he was looking for. Sollux, when he was in the right mood, was exactly what Dave was looking for, but that wasn’t a guarantee. However, the look that Karkat had given him? It was like pure bliss, an invitation to counter-troll the worst excuse for a troll ever, to give his sick ass metaphors some exercise and his brain a bit of some well deserved stimulation. 

Unfortunately, the next forced-to-play-games night was a couple of days away. This meant that Dave would actually have to put in a bit of effort if he really wanted this whole thing to work. He began to formulate a plan in his head about just how to go about rendering Karkat speechless in anger once more. 

The plan hinged on one main, and basic, principle: never relent. 

night princess  
oops i meant knight shit i always get that wrong  
its just so hard to tell sometimes  
my bad

Unfortunately, just as Dave slid his phone under his pillow with the tiniest hint of a smirk on his face, Vantas had the nerve to text him back, and quickly at that. Goddammit, really? That wasn’t the way this was supposed to work.

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU CAN DO STRIDER? YOU CAN SHOVE THAT PIECE OF SHIT PHONE YOU BARELY MANAGED TO ALCHEMIZE TOGETHER WITH THE LAST TWO FUNCTIONING NEURONS IN YOUR ROTTED THINK-PAN UP YOUR PRETENTIOUS, DOUCHEBAG ASS.  
YOUR FLAGRANT DISREGARD OF PERSONAL SPACE, LITERAL OR NOT, IS COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY DISGUSTING.  
PLEASE GO STRANGLE YOURSELF WITH YOUR OWN CONVOLUTED, NOT TO MENTION REVOLTING, METAPHORS UNTIL YOU ARE BLUE OR PURPLE IN THE FACE, OR WHATEVER REPULSIVE COLOR YOU PINK SACKS OF MEAT TURN WHEN YOU IMPEDE THE OXYGEN FLOW TO YOUR SPONGEY BREATHING APPARATUS. 

Dave winced in annoyance. That wasn’t the dumfounded, too-angry-to-function reaction he was expecting, based on their earlier “conversation” during Go Fish. He at least expected a bit of keypad mashing, opposed to a rather well-articulated insult, given the time of night. 

yeah whatever  
sleep tight tomorrows another day  
get your ass ready because this bucking bronco rides about to get so rough youll toss your hilariously terrible and tasteless troll cookies by the time were done  
and also make you scream  
ASDLASKJASF;SDAS

There we go.


	3. Chapter 3

Dave was trying his hardest to choke down some poorly alchemized lucky charms. The Alchemiter did a fantastic job of getting the boring cereal bits to be just as bland as they originally were meant to be, but had a hard time getting the proper consistency of the tiny, colorful marshmallows down (and also the color). As Dave popped a spoonful of greyish, vaguely sweet, globule bits into his mouth, he let himself observe the people who happened to be filtering into the room they had dubbed the cafeteria. It was a poor choice of words, since most of the rooms in the place were all the same, chock-full of lab equipment and a dull, unappetizing mechanical grey, but Egbert had decided that it was probably for the best if everyone was forced to eat together. Dave supposed it at least kind of helped promote a general chumminess, at least in the way that it didn’t directly reject the idea. 

Equius and Nepeta wandered their way in after a sulky but striding Eridan and Dave tried his best to not make eye contact or look inviting in the slightest-- the sunglasses helped. He had a very specific breakfast-table guest in mind for this morning’s dose of sarcasm and sick ass irony. Granted, he hadn’t had too many in-person relations with his intended prey, but whatever: it was pretty much the same as harassing them online. Gog, he would have been the best troll. 

And then, after a period of waiting that he probably deserved the shiniest, ironically-flimsiest medal for, Vantas slouched into the cafeteria, metaphorical cloud of gloom and rage almost palpable. 

“Yo, Vantas.” Dave didn’t raise his voice much to carry it across the room, he didn’t need to -- he knew the troll would catch it. Their hearing was pretty baller, actually. Well, maybe all the other trolls’ hearing sucked just a bit more because they had to put up with Vantas damaging their eardrums all the time. “This seat’s practically begging to cushion your choice rump this friend-leader-scheduled-morning.” He gave the troll a nod of his head and pushed out the chair with his foot, provoking a dull screech of metal against metal.

The nubby horned troll averted his eyes with the most visible of huffs and Dave went back to eating his cereal. He had won, obviously, as per usual, and it was only a matter of time until--

“Don’t you have anything better to do, Strider?” The voice cut through his thoughts like a properly sharpened machete slicing away at butter that had been sitting out on a counter for days. Vantas slammed a bowl of grey mush down on the table and unsurprisingly took the offered chair. After weeks, here, it didn’t take long for Dave to figure out that Karkat was pretty masochistic in his encounters. 

“I always have something better to do than to talk to you, Vantas. We all know it’s a killer waste of time. But nothing is quite so entertaining as watching your cheeks flush all pink with all the virginal glory they could muster every time you get even remotely frustrated. And lets not even talk about how you delicately bite your lip with those snaggle teeth of yours when you’re trying to hold your rage in like a crudely fashioned floodgate. It’s cute, really, getting you all hot and bothered.” At the moment, Strider was just letting himself go with the flow, stringing words together like a over-zealous 12 year old girl getting her craft on in a bead shop. In fact, he was hardly even paying any attention to what he was saying. After all, it didn’t even matter. As long as he got some reaction out of Karkat, it was worth it.

The troll was clearly holding his breath, fist clenched tightly around his spoon, his bowl of mush forgotten. He had been, rather politely, letting Dave finish, which probably had something to do with the fact that he couldn’t get a word in edge-wise. He was still seething by the time Dave was done, ready with words of his own, raised as per usual, “First of all, do you need any help removing your own ass, because it seems like you’ve got it stuck pretty far up there, Strider. Secondly, keep your irony and sarcasm to yourself I have much more important things to deal with.” He moving to get up and storm off, but paused for a moment before doing a pretty fantastic job of making eye-contact with Dave through his glasses (good luck, it had to be), a well placed glare showing just how displeased the troll was. “And thirdly, fuckass, don’t you ever dare think you could do anything that could have anything to do with getting me hot and bothered. Fuck you, and fuck off.”

And then he was gone. Dave glanced briefly at the place that the troll had occupied only seconds earlier with an almost puzzled expression. Quite honestly, this was actually turning out to be one of his better ideas. This was the most not-bored he had been in weeks. Karkat Vantas was intriguing, Dave had to give him that. But why? What made the troll rage and what made him flustered and at a loss for words? They were both entertaining reactions, but there was something strangely satisfying about getting Vantas to forget exactly how to formulate his rage into words, watching him turn red and storm off. It was awesome, a perfect reaction. 

The answer wasn’t too hard to get to, actually, after a few moments of coolkid musing. The troll raged at just about anything anyone ever said to him, including words from the friendliest derp imaginable. So what was different about the things Dave said to him? The previous night’s texting was a immediate clue. Simple teasing wasn’t enough -- it still pissed off the troll, but didn’t provide the desired reaction. Dave smirked, flipping through his chat log on his phone: poor Vantas couldn’t take anything sexual. It was like Egbert’s first reaction to gay chicken, only replacing rampant awkward embarrassment with...well, probably the same thing, actually. Just in a more outwardly aggressive way. This was an interesting development. And it wasn’t like Dave wasn’t up to the job, either. He could pilot himself expertly in the stormy skys of sexual innuendo and relentless, carnal teasing. Shit, this was going to be fun.


	4. Chapter 4

The next few days brought a lull in the kid-troll interactions. Vantas had the trolls working on some “SUPER IMPORTANT, NO TIME TO TALK ABOUT IT, GO GET OFF YOUR LAZY HUMAN ASS AND DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE IF YOU EVEN REMEMBER HOW TO DO THAT” thing and Dave saw straight through it like the poorly constructed glass wall that it was. This vastly important and also secret task had come up far too close on the heels of their delightfully illuminating breakfast conversation and Dave wasn’t stupid. Sure, he might have been dropped on his head a few times, but he had ended up completely fine, dude.

The coolkid slouched (a posture that took years to master, mind you, and took a good deal of dedication to maintain) through the metallic hallways of the Veil like the chillest lion stalking his prey. He had been at this for a little under an hour. It was slow going, given that his pace was reduced probably tenfold from a much more reasonable (but far less cool) stride, but honestly, he had all the time in the world. Dave paused, taking a wall to lean against as he pulled out his phone, deciding to expedite the process:

hey there sweet cheeks  
got a fraction of a second to cut out of your vacuum packed schedule to hit up a bro  
HONESTLY, YES.  
WILL I SIT IDLY BY AND HUMOR YOU THROUGH YOUR IRONIC TWISTS AND PIROUETTES AND FUCKING SOMERSAULTS OF TIME WASTING HOOFBEASTSHIT? NO.  
DO YOU KNOW WHY, STRIDER?  
BECAUSE I HAVE BETTER THINGS TO BE DOING WITH MY TIME.  
LIKE TRYING TO REMOVE MY OWN EYES WITH A SPOON THAT I CARVED MYSELF WITH MY OWN NAILS.  
OR TALKING TO NEPETA ABOUT HER CRACK SHIPPING WALL, WHICH IS ALL KINDS OF LOVELY, BY THE WAY, YOU SHOULD REALLY CHECK IT OUT.  
yeah okay whatever  
speaking of your claws though ive seen those bro and theyre pretty rad if you dont mind me saying  
you should be doing something more productive with those prize ass tearing specimens  
like running them down my back in the righteous throes of pleasure at the hands of yours truly  
tearing at my scalp as you grab fistfulls of my hair because you are floating so far away from reality in a haze of pleasure and lust

Dave stopped as soon as he heard the scream of frustration (...and was that a pinch of lust? score.) from down the hallway. As well as the sound of a phone slamming pretty damn hard up against a rather unforgiving wall. Lucky thing troll communicating devices were built to withstand pretty stellar displays of rage and strength, Dave was going to be taking full advantage of that indestructibility. 

The next time Dave stumbled on the group of trolls, Karkat had planted himself firmly in the middle of the huddle, surrounding himself with a shield of bodies that he knew Dave wasn’t about to wade through -- Strider liked his personal space. And it was true. But also unnecessary. The second Dave set foot into the computer lab, his eyes trained on Karkat and that was all he needed -- he could hear the growl rising from the troll’s throat from half a room away. What was the score again? Infinity to none.

He also caught that blush on Vantas’ face before he turned on his heel and slouched out of the room.


	5. Chapter 5

Shit was getting serious. It was definitely an entertaining game he was playing with Vantas -- but it was also a careful game. He had to calculate each step, move his pieces just right, to be able to set off the troll just so. He couldn’t just charge right in headfirst, all cylinders firing at a thousand or Dave’d upset the careful balance that he had managed to create. Somehow, he had Vantas perched between overwhelmingly annoyed and embarrassed enough to not confront Dave about his current shenanigans. It took a lot of calculation and honestly, it had been pretty much all that Strider had been thinking about. And that was alright. It wasn’t as if there was anything else he should have been doing with his time. 

A giggle and something near a cackle got Dave’s eyes rolling behind his shades and his feet heading in the opposite direction -- John was currently occupied with Vriska and he didn’t even want to know how that was going. Sure, it was moderately annoying that his best bro was suddenly caught up all the time in spider bitch plots and schemes, but cool kids don’t complain. No, cool kids don’t get phased by stupid shit like that and they made the best with what was at hand. Which was, in the current situation, a noisy, sexually repressed troll. Which, upon further inspection, wasn’t a half bad situation to be in at all. 

sup hot stuff  
you wanna make some sweet use of your time  
and booty pop that choice rump over here  
we can get our conversation on  
and by conversation i mean some mutual mouth mashing action  
with very few words   
in case that wasnt clear

His hand was on his phone and the words were already sent before he even realized what he was doing. The lack of thought that backed the action was momentarily troubling, but nothing actually bothered a Strider because that would be definitely uncool, so he quickly got over that bullshit. It’s not that he really meant any of it, anyway, so what the hell. It was all in the name of some good, clean, ironic fun. 

DSLAKDJASHF;LADKS  
YOU KNOW WHAT, STRIDER? FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU AND YOUR STUPID PRICK  
DOUCHEBAG SUNGLASSES. AND YOUR “I PROBABLY SPENT THREE HOURS STYLING MY HAIR THIS MORNING BUT I STILL LOOK LIKE I JUST ROLLED OUT OF BED, I HOPE YOU NOTICE HOW COOL I AM” LOOK.   
FUCK YOU AND YOUR POUTY FUCKING CONSTANTLY CHEWED-ON LIPS, BECAUSE YOUR WEIRD ASS ORAL FIXATION HAS GOT TO FIXATE SOMEWHERE, RIGHT? I MEAN AT SOME POINT YOU SHOULD GIVE YOUR ABUSED FLESHY TEETH-SHIELDS A DAY OFF, BECAUSE OH MY BULGE BUMPING GOD YOU’RE AT THOSE WITH SUCH GAY, UNRELENTING ABANDON THAT THE HIGHEST PAID INTERROGATOR WOULD BLANCH AT YOUR TACTICS AND RESOLVE.   
woah take a chill pill there  
heres a big glass of calm the fuck down to swallow that right on down with  
do you got it  
or do you need me to rub your back a bit   
I’M NOT SOME PATHETIC WRIGGLER, STRIDER.   
IF YOU COME ANYWHERE NEAR ME, I SWEAR TO MOTHERGRUB FUCKING TROLL JEGUS I WILL BITE YOUR BACK RUBBING, NO SENSE OF PERSONAL SPACE HANDS CLEAN OFF. THE SEVERANCE WILL BE SO CLEAN, EVEN, THAT SOME WILL WONDER IF YOU WERE JUST BORN THAT UNFORTUNATE WAY.   
you know  
to me that sounded just a bit like a challenge  
not to mention the weird ass obsession with my lips you seemed to glaze right on over back there  
im no frosting specialist but that was one serene pirouette of gaze mastery right there chef vantas   
WHAT  
NO   
do you want to perform a closer inspection of them  
because we can discuss prime open business hours if thats the kind of thing youre looking for  
i assure you they are quality assured and far beyond par  
perhaps we can introduce them to rather  
shall we say  
alien   
body parts  
and see what the compatibility rating is  
what do you say   
ASLDKAFJKL


End file.
